3rd degree burns
by vegetasgirl45
Summary: Vegeta falls in love with a sayian named Raiko and goes through this freaky Ring-like thing to save her life. FINISHED (btw, Bulma was never created in my stories, cept this one)
1. chapter 1

Maria: HI! THIS IS MY FIRST FIC! I HOPE YOU LIKE AND I DO NOT OWN DBZ AND STUFF AND Y AM I TYPING IN ALL CAPS?!?! There...Megan is my friend from school and stuff. So...yeah. *huggles Vegeta* Bulma needs to die.  
  
Vegeta: O_o also, she forgot to mention this but, ah, Android 411 is just an android she made up, just in case anyone's confused  
  
*****  
  
He let out the final blow. She was too tired to dodge it, so she let it hit her in the face. She fell backwards, hitting the ground with great force. Vegeta rushed forward, eager to make her pain vanish. Android #411 smirked, his red eyes gleaming with pleasure. Vegeta lifted Raiko in his arms, her limp body seeming to melt into him. He looked down at her face with despair, then at 411 with hatred.  
  
~~~~~  
  
Vegeta and the rest of the gang flew towards the nearest city, looking for a hospital. They were all beaten, slightly, but Vegeta held a woman that was barely hanging onto life. Her name was Raiko, and she seemed to be Vegeta's lover, though they never confessed it.  
  
Vegeta was extremely pissed off. He never should've let Raiko take on 411. She had insisted that she show them what she could do, and in the beginning she did a lot of damage...until 411 used one of her attacks against her. Actually, it was also Vegeta's. It was the Big Bang attack. He was astonished after she used it, and VERY angry when 411 used it.  
  
They landed in front of the hospital, entering through the emergency room doors. The doctors said she'd be fine after a few days, so they put her in a room on the thirteenth floor.  
  
Vegeta sat at the desk next to her hospital bed, holding her bandaged hand. He didn't care that everyone else was watching him. After a couple minutes a nurse came and shooed them away. Vegeta wasn't about to be separated, though. He thought of a quick excuse, and thinking that this one was good enough, said,  
  
"I'm her husband." He was blushing furiously. Fortunately, the nurse bought it, shrugged and started tending to Raiko.  
  
After the nurse left, Vegeta turned on the TV. The news was on. It was showing images of the android destroying cities. Vegeta scowled, turning it off. He looked back at Raiko. She hadn't moved in a while. He took off one of his gloves and put his hand to her forehead. It was pretty hot. He frowned, wondering if she was sick. He shook his head. Sayians couldn't get sick.  
  
He sat back in his chair, putting the glove back on his hand. He was getting really bored, but he wanted to stay with Raiko. He really wanted to show her that he cared for her. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier each second and he fell into a deep sleep, his head on his arms, on top of the desk. His dreams were strange.  
  
He dreamt he was in a world where the entire human race and everyone else on Earth was gone. He was totally alone. He flew around ghost-like buildings and through abandoned houses. He felt vulnerable to something...but he didn't know what it was. As he flew through a big mansion, a picture frame caught his eye. He skidded to a halt and picked it up. He gasped.  
  
It was a picture of him in a tuxedo and Raiko at his side, wearing a white dress with a veil. At the top were the words, "Just Married". He took the picture out of the frame and placed it in his pocket. He exited the house, expecting the outside world to be a city, but instead he was looking at an apartment door. He looked behind him, and there was a railing where the door to that house used to be. He turned back to the door and opened it.  
  
Inside he smelled smoke and incense, he could even see it. Whoever lived in this house was a drug addict. He stepped into the dining room area. Instead of seeing a table and chairs, canvases and cans of paint and paintbrushes littered the floor. In the middle of the carpet there was a large, red spot where there must have been a paint spill. He looked at the painting hanging on the wall.  
  
On a rather large canvass was the image of a woman ripping her own heart out. Her hair was in clumps as if most of it had been torn out. The image of blood flashed the surface of the painting, like it was a camera. The woman looked very sad, despite the fact she was in huge amounts of pain. Vegeta looked at the painting for a few moments longer, then, entirely grossed out, turned away and looked at the recent masterpiece.  
  
The canvass was small, and Vegeta had to hold it up very close to see every detail. The background was black, like the other painting, and there was a small window in the right corner. He could make out a face of a small girl (or boy. He couldn't tell) looking up at the moon and stars outside, with a small tear running down his or her cheek. At the other side of the canvass was a knife. There was blood on it, and was held by a man who was kneeling over a slain woman. The man was very skinny and had black clothes and hair. A few tears ran down his cheeks as well. It looked as if he both killed the woman and now regretted it, or the murderer ran off and he picked up the knife, mourning over the loss of the woman. Vegeta set it down. Whoever painted these paintings was very depressed.  
  
A sound of sobbing filled his ears. It was coming from down the hall, from a bedroom. He started walking towards the door, opening it and entering. A little boy was lying on his bed, crying. He had purple hair and looked very familiar. A woman who looked very much like Raiko sat at his bedside, also crying. She held a picture in her hands. She was whispering something that Vegeta could only barely hear,  
  
"Vegeta...Vegeta, come back...why did you...why?" Vegeta's eyes widened. This woman was Raiko, and the little boy...his son? What was going on? He stumbled backwards into the hall. He fell backwards and hit his head on the wall. He frantically got up and scrambled for the door. As he crossed in front of the dining room, a screaming sound filled his ears. He clamped his hands over them in pain. It sounded like nails on a blackboard. He looked for what was making the noise, and recoiled in horror as he found it.  
  
The woman from the first painting was on the floor, ripping her heart out as she did in the painting, except she was real. Her nails clawed at her open skin and her organs, her blood flowing dark and thick onto the carpet. Vegeta got up and, still with his hands over his ears, backed up against the window. Vegeta noticed that the canvass that held the image of the screaming woman on it was blank. Raiko and the little boy came running from down the hall, their hands over their ears as well.  
  
"Mom, make it stop!" the boy yelled. Raiko rushed forward, her hands leaving her ears, and forming small balls of Ki. She threw them at the woman, but they went right through. The woman's image fuzzed like if she was on a TV screen. She never stopped screaming.  
  
"What do you want from me?!" Raiko screamed at the woman, "What do you want from me, Bulma?! Why are you haunting me and Trunks?!" Bulma, the woman, ceased her suicide, and then turned on Raiko, her pupils retreating to the back of her head. She crawled on the ground towards Raiko, her nails ripped out and her skin rotted and bloody. Raiko jumped back, throwing her arms around her son.  
  
Bulma came closer and closer every second. Raiko and Trunks got as far away from the crazy woman as possible, but they couldn't escape. The hair that was still on Bulma's head fell in front of her face like a blue wall. It was wet with blood. As she got closer to Raiko and Trunks, Vegeta couldn't hold back any longer. He leapt in front of Bulma, shielding Raiko and Trunks. Amazed expressions jumped onto their faces. Bulma withdrew as if she was struck by a bullet, screaming. She recovered herself and, still shrieking like a banshee, lunged at Vegeta, her hands outstretched to grab him. As she hit him, humongous amounts excruciating pain overwhelmed him and he woke up with a shout in a cold sweat on the hospital desk. It was dark out, and he saw food left for him next to his arm. He pushed it away. The thought of food make him want to throw up from what he just experienced.  
  
~~~~~ 


	2. chapter 2

For the next few days, Vegeta kept experiencing the second part of his dream over and over again. It got so bad that he couldn't sleep for fear of dreaming that same dream again. He started seeing things, horrible things, in mirrors or on the TV. Soon, the others started to get worried about him. If anyone would try to talk to him, he would ignore them. Everyone could see that wherever he went, he would shake violently. Megan was fed up with this and finally pulled Vegeta aside to talk to him alone.  
  
"Vegeta, we need to talk." Vegeta looked at Megan with this look like, 'go away', but it was weak. He hadn't eaten or slept in two days.  
  
"What do you want?" he said, weakly. Megan sighed, wondering where to start.  
  
"We've all noticed that you haven't eaten in a while. Are you feeling okay? You look a little 'under the weather'." Megan asked, cocking her head. Vegeta turned away, pretending not to hear. Megan, fed up with his 'I can't hear you' shtick, punched him real hard in the stomach. Vegeta clutched his stomach, his eyes shut tight and his teeth clenched. Megan pulled him back up by his shirt.  
  
"You're going to give me some answers, whether you like it or not, Vegeta," Megan whispered, slamming Vegeta into the wall. Vegeta nodded, giving up. "Why aren't you eating?" Megan started.  
  
"I can't," whispered Vegeta, "I'll heave."  
  
"Second question: why haven't you been sleeping?"  
  
"If I sleep I'll have the same dream that I've been having every time I've tried to go to sleep. I dream of this woman named...Bulma ripping her heart out. The details are very good and very disgusting. She wanted to kill Raiko and--..." he decided not to tell Megan about Trunks.  
  
"And that's why you couldn't eat?" Vegeta nodded his head.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I've been seeing you recoil in horror from mirrors like you see something in them...are you seeing things from your dream?" Vegeta shook his head.  
  
"Not...not exactly," he murmured, "In the background I can see piles of bloody carcasses. There's usually a figure sitting near them, looking at me with no eyes in its sockets. It's...revolting." Megan sighed, letting go of Vegeta and scratched the back of her head. Vegeta looked away. He was shaking a little more than usual.  
  
"I think you should go to bed, regardless of the dream. If you face it, you won't be afraid of it anymore. I'll stay in the room just in case," Megan concluded. Vegeta put back on his attitude.  
  
"I don't need your help I can-" he started, but was interrupted by another punch in the stomach.  
  
"I don't care what you say. I'm going to stay in your room until you feel better. If you don't eat, you'll starve, and if you don't sleep you won't be able to see Raiko when she wakes up." Vegeta, kneeling on the floor and clutching his stomach, whispered an inaudible, "Okay..." ~~~~~  
  
Vegeta woke up at one in the morning, creeped out from the dream. He was shaking a lot, but he had most, if not all, of his strength back. Megan forced him to eat, and made sure that he fell asleep.  
  
He sat up and turned on the TV, first checking to see in Megan was still in the room. For some reason, she wasn't. The news came on and he decided to watch.  
  
"This just in," the anchor said, "the General Hospital has caught fire. Just a little while ago, the fire broke out on the 13th floor..." Vegeta's brain did a double take.  
  
"General Hospital...13th floor?! That's where Raiko is!" He jumped out of bed and threw on his boots. He flew out the door (literally) and out the open window (A/N: I don't know WHY it's open, it just is...)  
  
He could see the flames before he reached the hospital, and flew as fast as he could. He reached the hospital in record time. He landed on the lawn.  
  
"No..." he whispered. The whole entire hospital was engulfed in flames. He felt someone tap him on the shoulder, and turned. It was Megan, with a sad, yet determined look on her face.  
  
"Look," she said, and pointed to the east side of the hospital. The flames hadn't reached there yet.  
  
"Isn't that where Raiko is?" Megan asked. Vegeta's eyes got wide.  
  
"It is!" He started to take off, but Megan held him back.  
  
"What?! The love of my life is going to die if you don't let me go!" he clamped a hand over his mouth. 'I didn't just say that...no...I DID NOT just say that...' he thought to himself. Megan smiled.  
  
"I knew you liked her," she held out a hand for Vegeta to shake, "Let's team up and go save her. Truce?" Vegeta, hesitant, shook her hand.  
  
"Truce."  
  
~~~~~ 


	3. chapter 3

A few seconds later Megan and Vegeta crashed through a window on the 13th floor of the hospital. Immediately they felt the heat and smelled the smoke from the huge fire. They covered their noses and mouths and started looking for Raiko. Vegeta's heart was racing. He could lose Raiko...forever. And then he thought of the Dragon Balls. But still, losing her would break his heart.  
  
Suddenly, a part of the ceiling crashed down in front of them, blocking their path. Vegeta coughed as the smoke grew thicker and the heat more intense. They swerved to the left, dodging another cave in. They kept going straight, looking for Raiko's room. They turned another corner, and recognized the hallway. The fire was right behind them.  
  
"Which one is it? I forgot," asked Megan.  
  
"It's room number 1313," Vegeta replied. They took off, looking at each number on the doors...  
  
1301...1302...1303...1304...  
  
...the numbers seemed to go on forever, but then he saw, "1313". He screeched to a halt, almost falling backwards. He reached for the handle...  
  
A wave of pain took over him as the burning ceiling forced him to the ground. He screamed in pain.  
  
Megan had turned around just in time to see the ceiling fall. She was there in a flash, pushing the tiles off Vegeta's scorched body. After the burning tiles were removed, Megan looked down at Vegeta. Vegeta lay there, 3rd degree burns covering at least 90% of his body. He was in so much pain...he didn't think he could go on. He blacked out...  
  
...and was in front of the apartment door again. He gulped and went inside. He examined the paintings and went to see Raiko and Trunks, and when he crossed in front of the dining room, the screaming sound filled his ears again. Bulma was on the floor, ripping her heart out. He backed up against the window, Raiko and Trunks coming out of the room. Raiko threw her Ki at Bulma and the same thing happened. She started crawling towards them, wanting blood. Vegeta wanted to know what would make this stop. It was haunting him to the point of not wanting to live.  
  
He needed to do something. He needed to prevent Bulma from getting to them. He didn't want to be in more pain than he already was. He stepped forward, taking a breath. Bulma looked up at him, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. This time she didn't scream. Vegeta let out the air in his lungs, and then took another deep breath.  
  
"Why do you want to hurt us? You don't really want to hurt people, do you?" he said. Bulma recoiled, hissing. Then, she started cackling. She laughed until she couldn't get any more breath in, and then said in an insane voice,  
  
"Oh, but I do. And I'm sorry. It won't stop." She started to advance again. Raiko and Trunks were whimpering with fright. Vegeta scowled at the bloody thing crawling forward on the carpet. This was foolish. He shouldn't be scared by a bloody heap of limbs that shouldn't even be called a human anymore it was so mangled. He transformed into SS2 and blasted the gory woman into oblivion. As the smoke cleared, Bulma was gone, and so was the painting that she had come from. Vegeta returned to his regular state. Raiko stood up and gave Vegeta a kiss. She reached into his pocket and took out the "Just Married" picture. She held up a picture just like it in the other hand.  
  
"Go make it real," she said.  
  
He woke up with a start on the floor of the hospital. He rolled over and stood up, ignoring his burnt body. In a burst of light he transformed into a Super Sayian. He grabbed the handle and pushed the door open violently. He rushed over to the bedside. Raiko was no better than the last time he saw her (not including the dreams). He took off the air mask, and carefully removed the IV from her arm, placing a nearby bandage on it. Then he picked her up and crashed out the window, back first.  
  
He bit back a scream of pain as glass cut his skin. His eyes clouded over. He blinked, trying to clear them, but it didn't help.  
  
"Megan!" he yelled, praying that she would hear him. She did and flew out to meet Vegeta.  
  
"What's wrong?" she asked, concerned. Vegeta covered his eyes with a hand and unintentionally fell into Megan, his hair fading back into his original black color. Megan suddenly realized that Vegeta was about to faint, and put Vegeta's arm around her shoulder, her other arm taking Raiko. She floated silently to the ground.  
  
Nurses and doctors and reporters rushed over to her. Vegeta and Raiko were taken to the ambulances, and the reporters questioned Megan about how she saved them. She looked at the reporters, silent, and then flew away after Vegeta and Raiko.  
  
Vegeta was in much worse a state than Raiko, even though, as a Sayian, he could heal his wounds fast. But then again, so was Raiko, but her wounds hadn't healed all the way either. Soon, after a couple of hours, she woke up, her eyes searching for Vegeta. Megan came into view.  
  
"Are you okay?" she asked. She nodded, silently, then asked,  
  
"Where's Vegeta? I want to see him." Megan's face suddenly got very worried. She looked at the cot to her right. Raiko followed her gaze...  
  
Vegeta lay in a sea of bandages, wires connected to him, and an EKG sat next to the makeshift bed. An air mask covered his nose and mouth. He was breathing slowly and weakly. Raiko's eyes filled with tears, and she let them fall.  
  
"He's not going to make it..." she turned back to Megan, "is he...?"  
  
She solemnly shook his head. She looked back over at Vegeta, the reading from the EKG getting slower...and slower. Despite the still broken bones, she leapt out of bed and flung herself at Vegeta's side. She took his hand, tears streaming down her face. He opened his eyes and looked at her through also teary eyes. Vegeta held his hand up to her face and she let him touch her cheek, her hands holding his. He then took off his air mask and the held both of her hands. He turned them over, palm side up, and kissed her palms, then closing her fingers.  
  
"Keep these until I return..." he said, and then died.  
  
~~~~~  
  
Maria: there. Its done. Now be happy. AND NO FLAMES! I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK! KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!!!!!!!  
  
Vegeta; if you can't say anything nice, don't even say it at all...  
  
Maria: of course, but you don't even go by that rule.  
  
Vegeta: ^^ heh. Oh yeah.  
  
Maria: anyway, the sequel is up. It's called Valentines Day. ^^ oh, yeah, my birthday is actually on V-Day. Anyway...*huggles Vegeta* have fun! 


End file.
